Loren Connors - Hell's Kitchen Park

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5...according to our Brett on Thu 01 Jul, 2010.

As you may or may not know, this fella plays guitar and he's more than slightly handy at it. On top form I'd say he's got about the highest emotion to notes played ratio going, it's pretty incredible what he can wring out of just one sustained tone or string bend. Hell's Kitchen Park is the first of an exciting series of vinyl reissues of his 90s output which finds him emphatically in that kind of top form, whether his chosen mode is his tenderly picked acoustic blues 'airs' or the effect-laden, sometimes almost Haino-esque cries of his electric playing. As on many of his recordings, his wife Suzanne Langille contributes occasional vocals. A concept album of sorts, his empathy for the (largely Irish-American) inhabitants of Hell's Kitchen in the early 20th century and the poverty and squalid conditions they suffered absolutely drips from every note and I'd defy even the hardest heart not to be moved in some way by it. Absolutely superb.

180 gram vinyl special. Just at this point in time, when the album has well earned its place in people’s minds and when even for the resourceful collector, the original disc has become impossible to find, it is released in the format it was intended to be. Hell’s Kitchen Park is the first of a selection of Loren Connors’ typical and truly addictive guitar suites from the 90’s to be reissued on vinyl. With his initial imprint release in 1993 on Black Label, Loren introduced his first thematic effort that later would prove to have shaped the identity of his work as it is today. Loren started using the electric guitar in the late 80’s, which enabled him to experiment with more sustain and subtlety. This resulted in recording shorter, more structured pieces as opposed to his earlier acoustic solo work of long, on-going improvisation. He put down chord material on the four-track tape recorder, a sequence, and then overdubbed leads onto it. Pieces were built up in this way, and subsequently, suites of pieces. The first album recorded in this fashion was In Pittsburgh, followed by Blues: The “Dark Paintings” of Mark Rothko, Fallen Son, Midnight, concluded by and partially compiled on Rooms. All were self-released on the St. Joan label in very limited numbers, during a very productive period from 1989 to 1990. With the exception of the occasional tracks on which Suzanne Langille sang, most were merely numbered and named Blues, still leaving Loren’s work strongly signatured only in sound. In 1993, a picture of a poverty scene from around the turn of the 20th century lead Loren to come up with his first theme-based suite, continuing his solo home-recordings now most distinctive in both sound and image. Hell’s Kitchen Park radiates with inspiration. On this album, Loren introduces the contrast between tender, often anthem-like melodic lullabies, and haunting, thick distorted guitar crying, which causes great intensity. Suzanne Langille’s occasional singing adds surprising diversity and warmth to the recording. It mingles so naturally that it sometimes is difficult to tell her voice from guitar, as it seems to appear in tracks where it is not recorded. The tracks are strung together to build a composition as a whole, so it works as a composition itself rather than just a collection of pieces. The story the suite tells is of the poor circumstances the early 20th century Irish-New York folk were living in, clustered in a neighborhood called Hell’s Kitchen. The theme first saw light in a 7-inch ep called Mother & Son, which was released in 1993 by Road Cone, shortly before the Hell's Kitchen Park cd. The picture that inspired Loren to put the suite together is shown on the cover of the lp. Probably one of the best known, yet least owned albums by Loren is now available again, on 180 gr quality vinyl in a thick cardboard sleeve.

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